Death Comes First by Hilary Bonner Page B

over-shadowed his business obligations.
    He found himself thinking, as he so often did, of the young undergraduate he’d seduced twenty-six years earlier. He had been a fool ever to let her get away, but he’d beenjust a kid himself, out to earn a reputation as a Lothario. Joyce had been particularly receptive, a warm and eager lover. But at the time she’d merely been one more  . . .  well, he’d never actually carved notches on his bedpost, but that pretty much summed up his attitude in those days.
    He was sure Joyce had been upset when she found out about the other women, but whereas most of his conquests cried and pleaded with him, Joyce had responded with a cold and distant anger. She’d been strong too, telling him that she wouldn’t stand for it, and that their relationship, such as it was, was over. At first he hadn’t cared a jot. It was only when Joyce and Charlie became an item that he began to have regrets, to wonder whether Joyce had meant more to him than he’d realized. He’d hoped that he might get a second chance, so he could prove that, beneath his devil-may-care facade, he really cared for her. Indeed he found himself hoping that the relationship between Joyce and Charlie wouldn’t last.
    In spite of that, he set out to make friends with Charlie. He reckoned that if he was close to Charlie, he would be well placed to keep an eye on the state of their relationship and step in if it began to wane. Joyce accepted him as a friend far more readily than he would have expected. Whatever grudge she might have borne against him was forgotten the moment Charlie came on the scene.
    It soon became evident that what Joyce had with Charlie was no fling. The pair were convinced that they would be together for ever – an opinion shared by anyone who came in contact with them. So there would be no second chance for Stephen. The best he could hope for was a platonic friendship with both halves of the couple who were soon to be known as JC.
    The three of them remained firm friends even after Stephen graduated, a year ahead of Joyce. Having also completed his Legal Practice Course, he immediately joined a local firm of solicitors on a training contract.
    But the more Stephen saw of Joyce, the more he wanted her. The attraction fascinated him. He knew the sensible thing would be to distance himself from her, that there was nothing to be gained by maintaining contact when he daren’t make any sort of move on her, but it was almost as if he relished the torment of being around her. Charlie, of course, was oblivious. He even asked Stephen to be best man at their wedding. And when a vacancy came up at Tanner-Max due to the retirement of Paul Gould, who’d been company secretary since Edward Tanner and Maxim Schmidt founded the firm, it was Charlie who recommended his newly qualified friend Stephen for the job.
    Henry Tanner liked to say that he ran a tight ship. Tanner-Max was a close-knit affair and Paul Gould was not only a valued family friend but also something of an elder statesman in the company. Henry wasn’t comfortable with bringing in an outsider. The fact that Charlie could vouch for Stephen was as important a factor in landing the job as the professional qualifications Stephen had worked so hard to achieve.
    Within months of his joining Tanner-Max, Charlie went off on extended paternity leave. That was when Stephen cemented his place at the family firm. He discovered there were intriguing and challenging aspects to the job, which he had not expected but which he found himself embracing willingly. Moreover the financial rewards were substantial, providing him with an enviable lifestyle. He bought himself an apartment in the regenerated dock area of Bristol, treated himself to long weekends in New York, and holidayed at the exclusiveCoral Reef Club in Barbados, sometimes alone and sometimes with one of the never-ending string of young women he still seemed to be able to attract easily enough when he put